Soundy

Classic symptoms of a ground loop caused by a combination of common power supply, common-ground cameras, and baluns. You can fix it by using separate power supplies for each camera, or by using cameras with built-in regulators, so they don't share power and video grounds. That will help avoid power-loss issues (as you can then use three pairs for power instead of one), but not the ground-loop issue.

Any particular reason you're set on these cameras?

You can't "daisy chain" video signals. Each camera needs its own pair all the way to the DVR.

It was a little hard to follow your post, but it sounds like you're using blue and orange for video on one camera, and brown and orange for signal on the other, with orange being a common ground between the two? If so, I'm not surprised you're having problems. For starters, you should only use one pair per camera for video over baluns, period. Second, you don't want to have a common video ground run between two cameras. You're already asking for ground loops by using common-ground cameras on baluns; doubling up the video grounds that way will only make that worse. Here's what I've done for two cameras on one Cat5: At the first camera, use the blue pair for video, orange and green for power. For the second run, splice in the orange, green, and brown pairs... then at the second camera, use brown for video, orange and green for power. Orange and green pairs can splice together (ie. orange and orange/white can go together at the splice point), but you need to make sure to splice the brown and brown/white separately. Now here's the thing: if you're seeing excessive voltage drop using 18/2 in the Siamese cable, then you'll see even worse drop with Cat5, since you're not only using thinner wire (three Cat5 pairs together is about equivalent to an 18/2 pair), but you're doubling the current load by connecting two cameras, so you're effectively only using a single 24 AWG pair for each camera's power. The cameras I did this with were CNBs with a maximum 2.2W power draw (about 180mA at 12V, so under 360mA total for both). All in all, unless I'm missing something, I don't think this will work well for you with the cameras you have. Ground-loop isolators are a workaround at best, and it sounds like these are cameras with built-in IR, which will be a LOT higher current draw. Switching to good low-power, low-light-capable, dual-voltage cameras like the CNBs would simply eliminate all these issues.

This is probably your clue, especially if you're using H.264 compression, since some H.264 implementations can be extremely processor-intensive to decode. I'm assuming the Aver works like most other NVRs in that for playback, it simply reads the video stream and sends it over the network, and leaves the actual decoding to the VMS and the computer it's running on. In this case, decoding on the Aver itself may simply require more processor than it has to spare with everything else it's doing.

^Agreed - this is a fairly well-known issue with Spectra IIIs (not COMMON, as they're very, very good cameras... but well-known). Power board fails and fuses blow all the time. Replace the power board and you're good to go.

You only need to post once, and you don't have to keep bumping every four hours. The professionals here come on the forum in their spare time and we get to questions when we get to them.

Gads - you need a proprietary remote to access the OSD?? 42 LEDs and that's all you get for illumination? *gak* You shouldn't be asking why a $60 camera is "outperforming" a $200 camera, you should be asking why you paid $200 for a $30 camera. "Sense Up" is a "trick" many cameras use to get better night shots by slowing down the shutter speed, thus allowing the camera to collect more light, but at the expense of causing "motion blur" - like the truck in this shot: Check out the samples here for a good low-light camera, no IR required: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=25383&start=59 That camera goes for well under $200

You'd probably want 2.8mm for camera 2, 6mm for the other two... actual angle of view will depend on the size of the sensor (1/4" or 1/3"). A better idea would simply be cameras with varifocal lenses so you can fine-tune each one to the area it needs to cover. What cameras are you using?

I doubt the RAID is the problem - we're running a very similar setup on several sites (more than a dozen, now that I think about it) with no issues. We're using Vigil hybrids with a variety of four- and eight-bay QNAPs (several TS-809Us), as well as Enhance Tech and Promise arrays (it's been something of an evolution ). Sites have anywhere from 16 to 31 cameras; mostly analog, but some with several MP (one has four 5MP Areconts and two 1.3MP IQs, another has seven 2MP HIKs). Even using the same family of switches (SFE1000P and its successors) with the same connections (RAID and DVR on the GbE ports). Lately we've taken to setting the arrays up as RAID6+hotspare (get about 11TB usable out of eight 2TB drives), and using that as THE primary storage - the DVR's internal drive is configured as an "alternate" that's used only if the RAID is unavailable. Frankly, I think about the only reason we stopped using the QNAPs was because of their support (or lack of it). When we had a power supply fail on one TS-439+, it took two days to actually get ahold of anyone... three more before they got back to me with a diagnosis. Once I finally got the box sent off to them, it was another two weeks before I got it back, and trying to reach anyone for a status update in that time was nearly impossible. We started using them in the first place because they customer wanted something cheaper than the Enhance Tech arrays we'd been using (the QNAPs were about 1/3 less), but after that issue and one other in a short time frame, the customer decided it wasn't worth it if problems couldn't get resolved in a timely fashion.

Yes, and yes.

Balun goes at the camera; video and power run over the Cat5 from the gazebo to the camera. Then you just use a single Cat5 to run all three video feeds and one audio feed back from the gazebo to the house, where you have the second balun for each run. The video and audio pairs just splice straight together at the gazebo. If there's existing coax and power from the gazebo to the camera locations though, just go ahead and use that - if it ain't broke, don't fix it

There's no such thing. A load device will draw only as much current as it needs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm's_law

Check it out, you're a movie star!

What's wrong with overkill? Overkill is fun! Especially if you're spending someone else's money

Depends where in Canada, I suppose... Vancouver's been pretty mild this year Iqualuit, not so much I would expect it to be fine, anyway... cameras generate a fair bit of their own heat, and a sealed enclosure like that will keep most of it inside.

Not sure how that balun would work for audio; the audio baluns I'm used to using in a live or studio situation are wired and function a little differently than passive video baluns. Then again, it might work fine... look at it this way, you can try it, and worst case, if the audio doesn't work, you can just split off that pair and run it through baluns specifically designed for audio. What I might actually do in this case, is run a Cat5 from the gazebo to each camera, power them from the gazebo, and simply splice the Cat5 runs together in the gazebo as well. For example: my standard wiring scheme for this is blue pair for video (blue for +, blue-white for -), orange pair for power + or "hot", green pair for power ground or "neutral", and brown pair left for a spare. So figure for the gazebo-house run, you assign blue for camera 1, orange for camera 2, green for camera 3, and brown for audio... the blue pair running to camera 1 would then connect in the gazebo to the blue pair on the house run; blue pair to camera 2 would connect to the orange pair on the house run; blue pair for camera 3 would connect to the green pair.

Well, for hybrid, there's this: http://www.3xlogic.com/prod/599/pro-series-hybrid-video-recorder - substantial step up, probably in the $4k-$5k range for a 960fps 32-channel hybrid version... but you can do any combination of analog and IP channels you want, plus it has modules for POS integration, video analytics, and a whole ton of other goodies. Modules are all fully functional on a 30-day trial basis as well, after which any you want can be individually registered. Being PC-based, it's also very easy to add external storage, including RAID arrays for data redundancy, cloud storage (if you have the bandwidth), etc. One thing to keep in mind: there's usually a difference between WANT and NEED when it comes to framerates. 15fps will in most cases be almost indistinguishable from 30fps, but will use half the storage. In a lot of cases, even 7-8fps will give you smooth motion, but use 1/4 the storage and bandwidth of 30fps.

What NVR? What cameras? What codec? Are you running the VMS on the system as well, or strictly NVR functions? What are the actual symptoms that make you think there's a "bottleneck"?

How about something like this? http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=1198 Designed for corner or surface mounting, vandal-resistant, 85x85mm (about 3-1/3", same size as the Vivotek, although thicker at 65mm), uses the Monalisa chip for great low-light performance... doesn't say so on the site, but I've seen it listed elsewhere as being an "outdoor" enclosure (should have no problems if it's mounted up udner the eaves). There are also lots of small vandal-resistant corner enclosures out there that can fit a board camera.

Are you talking about reducing vibrations directly to the recorder, or "image stabilization" features?

The Monalisa chip is what you're looking for - that's what gives the CNB cameras their low-light performance. Here's one very small design: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product.php?seqx_prod=1198 These are some very small domes: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product_list.php?maxx=1&midx=5&smxx=123 http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product_list.php?maxx=1&midx=5&smxx=165 And a number of bullet styles: http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product_list.php?maxx=1&midx=301 Save some money and just use Cat5e (or even Cat3). Run video on one pair, power on two or three others. Interference isn't a problem - the twisted pair is designed to reject it, as is the balanced line created by using baluns. Doesn't matter whether you use 12VDC or 24VAC. If you want to make a really clean install, you can use one of these to combine power and head-end baluns into one unit: http://www.easterncctv.com/accessories/ev04p-vps.htm Then use baluns like these on the camera end: http://www.easterncctv.com/accessories/ev01p-vp.htm

The specs on the housing should tell you its power requirements, but based on experience, a 40VA transformer should suffice.

Power-over-coax is rare... probably because there are so many different ways to achieve it, everyone who tried it did it a different way, meaning nobody's cameras were compatible with anyone else's systems (that's just a guess, BTW). The only ones I've seen with this were some Panasonic cameras, and they had to each have their own power supply unit that the coax passed through... and those units were stupid expensive. My boss and I have both taken the cameras apart and tried to figure out a way to power them externally, and neither of us could sort it out.

Dirt won't do a thing to shield interference - it's all in the distance between the runs. Shielded might help... simply running both in metal conduit will probably make the biggest difference.